In the present practice, two nurses or other health care providers are preferably employed in assisting a patient in moving from a supine position to a standing position. This is particularly true for a patient who has been in the supine position for a long period of time. In many instances, the patient in that condition simply does not want to stand because it is painful.
To get the patient to a standing position, the bed is lowered and the side rails of the bed are dropped. The patient is then pivoted or swung through approximately 90.degree. so that the patient's legs hang over the side of the bed. Even with the bed in a lowered position, the patient's feet likely will not rest firmly on the floor. Therefore, in addition to experiencing discomfort or pain, the patient is apprehensive about sliding off the bed without knowing when his feet will touch the floor.
In this situation, the health care providers assist the patient in getting his feet on the floor as he slides off the bed. The attendants are unable to lift the patient directly since they are at the edge of the bed and the patient's weight is centered inward of the edge of the bed. If the patient should start to fall, the attendants must hold the patient firmly while at the same time bracing themselves in a somewhat awkward position. The resulting situation is potentially injurious not only for the patient, but for the attendants as well.
One prior solution to this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,529 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. That patent discloses a bed which is convertible to a chair and has a retracting frame mounted on a fixed frame. A patient support surface is formed by serially connected panels with a seat panel being fixed to the retracting frame. Movement of the retracting frame toward the foot end of the bed causes a head panel to rise and a leg panel to drop, thereby creating a chair configuration. A foot panel of the bed underlies the patient's feet when in the chair position. As a result, a so-called "false floor" is created for the patient's feet, thereby preventing the patient from placing his feet directly on the floor to exit to stand and exit the bed. Likewise, the position of the foot panel in the chair configuration blocks access to patient and bed and prevents easily transferring the patient from the bed to a wheelchair or other ambulatory assisting device.
Another potential solution can be found in so-called birthing beds. In these beds, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,800 also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the foot section of the bed is totally removed from the bed for delivery purposes. While such a technique could be employed in beds convertible to chairs so as to provide direct access to the floor by a patient's feet, such a design requires removal, storage and replacement of the foot section.
Therefore there has been a need for a bed which converts to a chair, which lowers relatively close to the floor so that a patient's feet contact the floor while still seated in the chair bed, which does not have the foot section of the bed underlying the patient's feet, and which does not require the foot section of the bed to be removed.